THE MAN WHO LEARNED ABOUT RECORDS IN
HIS FATHER'S EAST END SHOP IS NOW MAKING
MILLION-COPY SUCCESSES
Mr. Levy shows
there's room at
the top for
the
little man
by RAMSDEN GREIG
TE
As years
TWENTY-FIVE Decca Levy personally supervises
record-maker Morris the production of å gromophone along the assembly line from the raw material to the glossy sleeves of the long- players.
record company got a new record all Dose-a 30-year-old City stockbroker called Edward Roberts Lewis. Until then ho hnd never heard of Bing Crosby. But Ted Lewis brought his
new company up off its kneea.
In 1956 it had a turnover of £13 million. Its trading profits
£1,780,000. were Bustness booms, too, in the other recording companies.
And there is still room in the business for the small
man.
CHOPIN SOLO
Levy
He said: "I dictate the policy from the beginning to the end. If I find myself with a flop on my hands I have only myself to blame. I pick the numbers and I pick the artists."
record cost you?"
I asked: "What does
a flop
of
money for a start. And, natur-- ally, it is an irritating waste of time and effort. But, of course, the person who suffers most. from a flop in the pe.Jermer. It's a tremendous blow to his pride. when he sees thousands of his unsold records lying lo the factory."
He said: "A great deal
to
I asked: "What happens these unsold records? Do your
THE CHINA MAIL,
SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 1, 1958.
MORRIS LEVY-only myself to blame.
THE BOOM in LONDON'S
Tin Pan Alley
factory hands have a sideline in making a wakey-wakey record fancy vases or ashtrays?”
.
for his holiday camp.
What can a record company
no
one
THE BOY WHO KNEW THE SEATING PLAN IN HEAVEN
HE chapel was bigger than the town, in the boyish
Tyes of Peter Fletcher.
THE LONG SUNDAY. By Pater Flotcher. Faber, 13s. 6d. evocation. It is a shado too carnival masks, etc. At last he
188.pages.
cool, clinical and thin-blooded. went too fer-ho denounced the
Yet, this backward glance le crimes of Pope Alexander. faintly Unged with regret. The Lately the brushes of the Long Sunday is something he whitewashers tiave been busy cocaped from. It is also acme with the Borgia family, Lucrezia thing he has lost.
Borgin was, it seema, very nearly a saint. Cesaro was a One soldier, if a shade impulsive in his methods, As for Alexan- of scandal-mongers.
The town lay somewhere on the east coast, with a population of about 50,000. At a guess, it was a dreary place. But the chapel was the ante-room of Heaven, the citadel of the Elect, the Sanctuary of the Saved, who had strenuously and exultantly reached it through the turnstile of Conversion.
For young Peter Fletcher It was the pulsing heart of his emotional life and, thanks to John Wesley, the centre of the world.
Doubt begins
142
by GEORGE MALCOLM THOMSON
EVSHING STANDARD
BOOK CRITIC.
Historic struggle THE MEDDLESOME FRIAR. By Michael da fa Badoyere, Collins. 18. 256 pages.
the
Savonarola had obtained
an
dor, he was, in part the victim
the
Vital moment Between UE conflict ro-told in this
Savonarola
and -book is one of
Alexander the balance, whether great of morals of power, was un- dramas of pro- Reformation evenly held. Alexander waited Christendom the struggle be- until tween the Florenting
monk's popularity friar begin to wane and then Savonarola and the Borgia Pope him burned at the stake.
had Fletcher is now 0 Street consultant in paychology, could not officiate.
Harley days when the regular performer Alexander Vi.
Wos It tho end? Ninotcen with all that this implies
Years laler Martin
Luther knowledge or hatt-knowledge of At regular intervals, the extraordinary power over the uttered his challenge to the oad quirks of the human mind, chapel seethod with drama. In people of Florence
cerruptions of the Church, and by Aery the Reformation was under way. From this eminence, he looks
organised campaign of sennons denouncing the vices of back on his childhood in the evangelism, it set out to "gave" society and Church,
But k his. dramatic. and pro- days before the 1814-18 war, the town. "Spit in their eyes, phesying punishments to come. readable secount Dedovere does with ecmo regret but no excess, Oh Lord, spit in their eyes and He made bonfires of "Vanities" not look so for ahead as that, of sympathy.
make the Eo-and-so's peel-playing-cards, indecent books, shouted on old Wesleyan war- horso the preliminary prayer meeting. The petition, carelessly phrased on it might be, was dis cussed for months after the ex- citements of the campaign were over and forgotten, :
Subtle appeal
predi
(London Express Service)..
FICTION SHELF
BY PHILIP OAKES
These chapters of auto- biography describe one of the expect to make on a million varieties of religious experience sales? Sald Morris Levy: "A
-the ending of a boy's loyalty clear profit of £5,000 wouldn't | to the fandt he was reared in. be far off the mark."
"A good boy is Russ," said told you without any hesitation At one time, Peter could have Levy with feeling.
the scaling When the music for Salad
arrangements in Days was hocked around the big were the Wesleyan Methodists. Houve Bang in the front row rocording companies
it had not "saved" the town: By Leonard Mosley. wanted to buy. The King and 1.
Congregationalists were in
It had, however, W
caused Peter | Lia, cd. Sad they said, would so as a long less favoured position: they did Fletcher some mental confusion.variation player, but not the music from
not worry enough about their "Ong of the subtlest temptations can't go home again. an English musical.
Bouls. To more eccentric and is the desire for that freedom happens to Christopher Lane, dearing. childish
groups like Primitive roma responsibility which is Beshy Lordon theatre director. Methodists, Baptists and Salva- to be had by submerging one's when he returns to his birth- will place Lancashire slum-and discovers # son he did not know existed. handled, with a fine narrative Melodrama, boldly air.
BELIEF ESSENTIALista, his attitude was one of identity in the corporate
Morris Levy, however, put another of his elegant silk shirts on that one. It sold 60,000 coples El 393. 101⁄2d: a time.
"When I believe in anything I'll gamble all I've got on it," Morris Levy said. It's the only way to make a go of the record- Ing business these day."
quiet superiorly and amused toleration. Nu doubt Joha Wesley would overlook their
te peculiarities and
Count hem among the blessed. No excuse
of the crowd.”
Another shock to faith came when his family's meagre capital was stolen by a fraudulent American lodger, a bogus fessor of ophthalmology hud captivated his mother. Al even more shattering experimice was at hand.
pro- who
● THE SEDUCTIVE MIRROR. der Zee (now drained off by Barker. canals), and the crop-headed contemporary cabin boys called "sca-mlee"→→→→ the theme of you who came of age in the reuppers, What Original, imaginative and en-
• FIVE MEN AND A SWAN. Unwin. By Naom! Mitchison. Allen and 120. 04. Thirteen stories drawn from a thousand years of Brottish lic, with themes ranging from clan war fare. to a Hebridean skipper THREE WINDOWS ON saved from debt a TV quiz SUMMER. By Peter Bourlah, Best of all, the title story about Macmillan, 15. First novel by a shorman, whose,enchanted spring 24-year-old writer
bride turns from a swan to a about long. hot summer in which woman only once a month, by three people-a young cousin, the light of a full moon. and his friend-learn the bitter- aweet facts of life; A most moving account of the end ni innocence told
in sensuous prosc
One day in the carly of 1914, the boy, watching the turmoil of a stormy sunset, was visited by a prophetic vision. The world was moving towards war, it was as if a voice had
A
The Church of England, I called at an old and
catering for "nomitial Chris- tians did not elegant block of flats just
50 come off off Baker Street to discover
I recall that Edward Roberts the very fringe of outer dark- well, Roman Catholles were on "They're melted down and go how 'Morris
Sald Morris Levy: "As soon Lewis unce sald was into the manufacture of
Bomething tress were they Christian at other as I heard him I decided to put similar. "Never be attold." making out. Morris Levy records," said Levy.
my shirt on him.
all? I put him Lewis said, "of committing bosses Oriole Records. Levy,
under contract and got him to yourself Like most people
Worst of all was the plight of to do something you the Anglo-Catholica. The Roman uttered the words in his car. the
show record Wo Will Make Love. who has those business, Morris Levy ITREATI
I believe in. Once you pre com- would put the factory on
overtime mitted, you have got to get on
Catholics might be excused on frantic skifters Nancy prefer to ulk about his suc pressing the record
the grounds by the with it."
few of ignorance but
months later, his Whiskey and Chas
He will talk at great hundred thousand. Me cesses.
Anglo-Catholics ought to know prophecy came true. The Long Devitt under contract, was paid off to the sweet tune of a
length about the gamble thot "Instead of losing als hood-
Uelter.
Sunday was over. In the army mode silk shirt, Levy was kept
he was embroiled in a world playing Chopin in
Secure in, the Wesleyan fold, vastly more complex than any- the millon record 54las. The busy adding up the profits on Georgian green drawing- gymble
young Pelo Fictcher lived with Russ the sale of a milion copies of The
his parents his warm-hearted, thing the chapel and its valites Hamilton. room. A coloured maid was
We Will Make Love. Many of
that
difficult" credulous mother and
had prepared him for. the million records' were sold la Berving tea.
hals depressed, dyspeptle father, Hamilton, a Butlin's redcoal, America. So there were dollars
This honest account of his was in Levy's recording studio. to add up, too.
dispensing chemist who boyhood, easy to read, at times "obliged" at the organ on Sun- umusing, locks the power of
Levy said: "Before the boom my company was £20,000 in the 'red', Today the business is worth at least a quorter of a
nililion poutes. When our profis for this year are worked out 1 will have great plessure showing them to people who called me a fool to go luo the record-making business. The profits should be
quite Starting."
Morris Levy opened his re- cord factory just 12 years ago,
He said: "1 couldn't have pleked
ปี
worse time to start making
gramophone records. The war had just ended and there was
no new equipment to be had anywhere. We literally bulli the place secondhand nul by secondhand boit,"
A comparatively new boy in the business of making records, 30-year-old Morris Levy hus however, spent his whole, work- ing life among gramophone
records.
That started when he left school at 14 to work for his father who sold recorda from a small shop in the East End.
"Father was something of a record-maker, too," Morris Lovy Bald. "As far back as 1903 he was putting music on cylinder Lecords."
MIXED BAG
By 1931 young Lovy had saved enough, to open his own recording studios. He said: "T first man I ever recorded was Harry Roy. As I recall it, i was rathor a risque mumber. Docca made the actual records for us in Those days-at tenpenes a time. I decided that that was no' 'way' to make vast profits and was thinking about starting my own factory when the war broke out."
Morris Levy atopped record- ing risque numbers
and was contracted by the BBC to record many of its war-time radio. programmes.
Not Harry Roy, but Gir Winston Churchill and Quentin Reynolds stood in front of Levy's, microphones during the war.
;
"Now these were recordings to cherish," wild Morris Levy,"
From the plush sofa ho picked up two of his latest Oriole release 20th Century Mass (a recording of the controversial modern: Mans penfirmed last [FERT (HÌ St-Georgou," - Camber-
well) and The Intoxicating M Whiskey and, said: “But then it taken all worts” of reccede “-10-| make, a work), Ma
Was
called
VIGNETTES OF LIFE
THE MISSUS WANTS TO READ HER FAVORITE PAPER
AT BREAKFAST TOO —
SAVE YOUR NERVES→→ PROVIDE TWO COPIES.
Next Wook formula for the song million
α
means
records.
-(London Express Service),
WHATEVER HAPPENED TO STRING SAVERS.?
TAKE CARE OF THE PENNIES. AND THE DOLLARS WILL TAKE CARE OF THEMSELVES – BUT DONT GET THE IDEA THAT YOU CAN, TAKE CARE OF THE BANK.
The Thrift Habit
strong, SUN IN THE
HUNTER'S EYES. By Mark Derby. Delitus. 12. Gd. Tough and satisfying suspense novel with a young writer whose play flops, chasing THE LOST SEA. By Jan De off to Malaya In search or a Harlor. Hamish Hamilton. 10. missing her. Attempted murder Gd. A shp11 perfect book about by drugging, drowning and alt-watc childhood in
burning. Well
climax staged drowned lord. A wide-eyed re-
with jungle Commuilta joking miniscence of the great fishing in the chase. flects that once sailed the Zuy-
Le
~(London Express Service).
By Harry Weinert
MORE WASTE ! THE FATS AND SCRAPS YOU THROW AWAY IN A WEEK
WOULD KEEP AN ESKIMO FAMILY FOR A YEAR!
IT DOESN'T HELP TO SIT AND LISTEN TO THE WATER METER. JUST BECAUSE YOU CAN'T FIGURE OUT A PLAN OF FAMILY CONSERVATION
ON
LAUNDRY
AND
'SHOWER
BATHS.
WASTE AOT, WANT NOT"-- ABOUT TO BE
BARRED FROM THE
IGLOO.
COEL IME BY GINDRAL PLATURI CONY, THE WOEL RIGHTS RESLAVID.
"SIX SNOW SHOVELS.
WHY SIX ?*
"THEY WERE
REDUCED-
A REAL! STEAL!
THRIFT BINGE.
BUT OFFICER-
I DIDN'T HAVE
ANÝ CHANGE?
SAVE IT FOR THE JUDGE.
OUT! WHO'S RUNNING
THIS
KITCHEN
ANYWAY ?
"ALL I KNOW. ABOUT MONEY: "MATTERS İS
THAT IT DOES